Linda DeWeese had been happily chatting with another woman at a table at Arboledas Mexican Grill one Saturday in Rockwall until someone across the room brought up Sen. Ted Cruz’s possible presidential run.

“Oh, God,” she said with a groan and a shake of her head.

The feeling was mutual among the other women in the room. DeWeese, a Plano resident, had traveled to Rockwall for the Liberal Ladies Who Lunch meeting. The gathering brings like-minded liberals together each month for food and conversation in a Republican-free space.

“All my close friends are Republican, and so I don’t really have the chance to voice my opinions on anything and remain friends,” DeWeese said.

The Liberal Ladies Who Lunch group started meeting in January and quickly spread through the Meetup.com website, other Democratic groups in the area and word-of-mouth. The group is one of six independent chapters of the Liberal Ladies Who Lunch in Texas, drawing residents from Rockwall County and a few from neighboring Collin County.

Rockwall resident and Democrat Erin Cibrone moved to the area from Pittsburgh and said she didn’t realize she would be living in such a conservative area. The lunch group is a necessity, she said, because she’s gotten into political arguments at the gym, her apartment and her child’s school.

“I tend to be a debater,” she said.

Finding Democrats in Rockwall County can be difficult. The majority of voters have repeatedly voted for conservative candidates, electing only Republicans to local, state and federal offices in non-partisan races since 2002. In the 2012 presidential election, 72.66 percent of county voters preferred Republican Mitt Romney. President Barack Obama received 22.75 percent of the vote in 2012, a result typical for the county based on historical data from the Texas Secretary of State’s office. Republicans have taken the majority of votes in the county in every presidential election since 1992.

Rockwall County Republican Chair Tony Fiske says the conservative trend is all about demographics.

“With the suburbs, you kind of find a more conservative group,” he said, noting that urban places such as Dallas County tend to have a larger population of Democrats while suburbs and rural areas such as Rockwall and Collin counties are more Republican. Fiske also says the turning point came when U.S. Rep. Ralph Hall switched from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party in 2004.

“There was just kind of a whole switch where traditional southern conservative Democrats switched to the party where their values were most aligned,” Fiske said.

Half of the liberal group at the August lunch meeting said they felt like they were the only liberals in Rockwall before they joined.

Rockwall resident Susie Stansel first discovered the Liberal Ladies Who Lunch group in Dallas and decided to open her own Rockwall chapter in January. The group has grown to 22 women in the first meeting to 47 women ranging in age from 20 to 94.

Stansel says the group mainly helps like-minded women socialize and works to get out the vote. The women also hope to do some community service projects, bringing some visibility to the Democratic minority in Rockwall County. Several members also have been involved in activism, traveling down to Austin during state Sen. Wendy Davis’ (D-Fort Worth) filibuster of an abortion bill at the end of the State Legislature’s first special session in June.

An analysis of recent statewide elections shows Rockwall to be one of the most conservative counties in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. In the 2012 race for Kay Bailey Hutchison’s seat in the U.S. Senate, 74 percent of voters in Rockwall County cast a ballot for Cruz. That percentage was dwarfed only by Parker, Wise and Johnson counties.

In the 2010 governor’s race, 72 percent of voters in Rockwall cast a ballot to re-elect Gov. Rick Perry, according to the Texas Secretary of State’s office. When it comes to the percentage of Republican votes cast, Rockwall came in second after nearly tying with Parker County for the top slot.

Rockwall County had one of the highest voter turnouts in recent elections. The county topped the list for the percentage of voters who came to the polls when Cruz won his Senate seat. It saw the third-highest turnout when Perry ran in 2010.

The Rockwall County Republican Women club and the Rockwall County Men’s club meet monthly. Other clubs include the Young Republicans and the two-month old Rockwall County Hispanic Republicans.

The Rockwall County Democratic Party hosts breakfast meetings every third Saturday. The party’s executive committee meets quarterly, with notification emails sent to active Democrats. The Liberal Ladies Who Lunch and Dem Dames are two independent women’s groups hosting unofficial meetings each month.

County Democratic Chair Judith Matherne doesn’t harbor notions of turning Rockwall County blue, but she hopes she and other Democrats in Rockwall County can move the margins, getting people who may be on the fence or are liberal-leaning to vote Democrat.

“We were kind of depleted as a party,” said Matherne, who was elected in March and says clubs like the lunch group help inspire fellow Democrats. “There’s energy here, and that translates to the party. It’s going to be an uphill battle.”

Rockwall/Rowlett neighborsgo editor Meredith Shamburger can be reached at 914-277-8292.

MORE INFO

To learn more about Democratic clubs in Rockwall County, such as the Liberal Ladies Who Lunch or Dem Dames, visit rockwalldems.com. To learn more about Republican clubs in Rockwall County, such as the Young Republicans or the Men’s Club, visit rockwallgop.com.

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